Public Policies What is the purpose of Public Policy o Address problems that impact public safety health and welfare of society o Must be effective o Evaluated before implemented What is the purpose of Criminal justice Policy o Protect members of society from other who may harm o Maintain social order o Reduce recidivism o Improve reintegration Programs put in place in prisons to prepare inmates to become more self sufficient when re enter society Mainstream Public policies had to serve a certain amount of time o Three strike laws o Truth in sentencing guidelines before eligible for parole offended 3 or more times then the judge could sentence 25 life o Sex offender registries public data that contain information of registered sex offenders focuses on habitual offenders If they have o D A R E o Scared straight programs o Supermax prisons o Private prisons o Faith based reentry programs Are these policies effective o Little empirical support for mainstream policies o More irrational than rational policies o Consequences Waste of resources Ongoing problems Potential dangers to ongoing problems The need for evaluation research o Systematic way of evaluating a policy o Accounts for important factors that may impact policy effectiveness o Failure to prepare is preparing to fail John Wooden o Evaluation Hierarchy 1 Needs is there a substantial need for policy If yes then 2 Theory look to prior theory and research and see what types of correlates and predictors are shown to increase likelihood of this problem satisfied then move onto Implementation how a policy is implement after designed Once assessed how well implemented then 3 4 Outcome and impact is the policy causing or having a change in the problem if is then 5 Cost efficiency is this gong to lead to more benefits than costs Policymakers risk wasting resources if one level of the hierarchy is NOT sufficiently satisfied Seems to be a common practice Ineffective CJ policies o DARE little to no deterrent effect on drug use in juvenile offending o Scared Straight Factors that influence CJ policy o Politics hundreds of evaluation studies across different sites report reviews suggest no effect and sometimes an increase Political influences Policymakers want to do what will get them reelected Sometimes means backing unevaluated criminal justice policies Running on the get tough platform has been o Social climate successful well covered stories Murder of Meghan Kanka Meghan s Law All sex offender information made public Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings o Public opinion often misinterpreted most of the time Many policies are created by policymakers who feel a public demand to do so What public wants is often misinterpreted by policymakers Most of public is misinformed when it comes to understanding Evaluation Research the CJ system o Systematically investigate the effectiveness of programs under certain political and social conditions that are designed to improve the welfare of society o Overall objective is to empirically assess every essential element of a policy in order to assess how effective it may be In other words what is effective of this policy that is actually going to improve the problem Objective strategically assess problem and prevalence of the problem as well as assessing how effective policy is going to be Evaluation Hierarchy o Systematic way of evaluating important elements of a policy o Higher levels rely on lower levels o Doing so improves accountability effectiveness and efficiency o Increases transparency between evaluation research and policymakers Needs evaluation Theory evaluation o Is there a need for the policy o If there isn t a need what is the reason for creating policy o Increase transparency between evaluation research and policymakers o If needs exists logically evaluate how a created policy will have an impact on crime o What important factors may cause increase in crime General Strain Theory GST Robert Agnew 2002 Crime is most likely result from anger which caused by failure to achieve positive goals loss of positive stimuli and or introduction of negative stimuli Community crimes rates What can buffer influence of strain on community members and reduce crime o Employment opportunities o Health care services o Mental health programs employment less crime Direct effect Indirect effect less need to commit crime employment sustainable income Implementation evaluation o How well a policy is implemented o Important to uncover aspects of a policy that may be difficult to implement Ex attracting employers to low income neighborhoods o Created alternative solutions to implementation issues o Helps hold the government and other agencies accountable Impact evaluation o Evaluate whether policy produces expected outcomes o Does policy impact the problem the way it is designed to What factors account for variation o Would a change take place without policy Cost Efficiency Evaluation o Is amount of resources spent on policy worth expected returns o Important to have reliable estimate of how much you re getting for your money o May become tricky when you cannot assign a value for certain returns Importance of Policy Evaluation o As government funds dwindled over time there s been a demand that funded policies show evidence o Is there really a need for the policy o Is the policy based on theoretical evidence o Has policy been implanted well o Has it impacted the problem o Is the policy cost efficient Benefits of an Evaluation framework o Could help promote more rational criminal justice policies o Invalidate quick fix policymaking o Break barrier between tough and soft on crime approaches o Create a line of communication between researchers and policymakers Influences on evaluation research o Interest groups o Lobbyists o Policymakers o Evaluation efforts Political interest groups o National Rifle Association NRA Gun policies o The Christian Coalition Faith based reentry programs o National Organization for Women Domestic violence intervention programs o Corrections Corporation for America CCA Private vs public prisons Sentencing guidelines Consequences of political interests on CJ Policy o Encourage policymakers to support certain policies that haven t been evaluated to be ineffective o Continue to endorse certain get tough policies that have been shown Consequences of social climate on CJ Policy o Lead to silver bullet solutions Quick solution to a difficult problem o Increase severity of current policies